This invention relates generally to a masking device for cropping photographs and more particularly but not by way of limitation to a masking device for mounting on a printer head of a photographic printer with a portion of the masking device received in front of the photographic paper in the printer head with the remaining portion of the masking device disposed in front of a view screen of the printer. Heretofore, cropping of photographs were done by manually cutting the photographs to a standard photographic size by scissors or a paper cutter. Generally in the photographic industry, the standard photograph sizes are 8".times.10", 5".times.7", 4".times.5", 31/2".times.5" and 31/2".times.31/2".
Prior art printers have included view screens which were marked with intersecting lines outlining the standard sizes. For example, an 8".times.10" negative or positive photograph could be viewed on the view screen and centered thereon, so that it could be determined what would be shown if the photograph was cropped to a standard 5.times.7 inch size. This method showed only what was cropped on the view screen and did not provide for cropping the photographic paper in the print head. This method contributed to waste of photographic paper since all of the photographs were printed for example, to a standard 8".times.10" size and then reduced to a smaller size by manually cutting the printed photograph.
The subject masking device eliminates the above problems in the viewing and cropping of photographs printed on a photograph printer.